Mamlūk Qurʾān Manuscripts

Abstract

The present article focuses on additional texts or appendices by scribes to three Qurʾānic manuscripts of the Mamlūk era. These appendices were accidentally found in the collections of Dār al-Kutub al-Miṣriyyah in Cairo: in Maṣāḥif 81 dating from 734/1334; Maṣāḥif 94 from 830/1427; and Maṣāḥif 143 also from 879/1474–1475. The three manuscripts are one-volume luxury copies of the Qurʾān. The subjects of these scribal appendices are mostly matters of qirāʾāt, taǧwīd, and waqf. They make explicit some of the rules that all scribes have internalized for themselves, as is often the case with crafts, but which are rarely recorded. Two of the three texts examined here are short, no more than one or two pages, but an exception to this is the longer text at the end of Maṣāḥif 81, the oldest example of the scribal additions that are presented herewith. The appendices are presented in chronological order. First, every manuscript is described generally, then each appendix is presented in transcription and annotated translation. At the end, a glossary of the technical terminology in use is added. All appendices are shown in facsimile.